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I read Damore's document and your summary and description of it seems entirely foreign and inconsistent to me. For example, you summarize it as "these are the

I read Damore's document and your summary and description of it seems entirely foreign and inconsistent to me. For example, you summarize it as "these are the insurmountable blockers to this kind of success for people who aren't like me". In Damore's document he discusses ways to promote diversity within Google by accounting for differences between men and women and adjusting Google's hiring and promotion practices to focus less on traits that are more represented among men. In other words, Damore does not view diversity problems as insurmountable blockers. Damore also says of himself that he is less likely to be assertive in ways that are rewarded at Google and explains that efforts to appreciate traits that are better represented among women would also benefit men evincing those traits. In other words, Damore doesn't break things down into "people like me" versus "people not like me". It seems like your summary is completely wrong. I've noticed that a lot of Damore critics have very strong opinions that seem not well informed by Damore's actual writing. Can you highlight any specific thing from Damore's document that is wrong?

civilized 5y ago
It's so deeply misinformed to say that Damore posited insurmountable blockers to groups of people not like him. It is impossible for me to understand how someone can claim to have read the document and this is what they understood it to be saying. First of all, he stressed that the relevant traits exist in abundance in all groups, as each group has a wide range of people within it. He had a giant graph illustrating this at the outset. He couldn't have been more clear. Second, he was talking about psychological tendencies and preferences, not a literal inability to do tech work.
- RangerScience 5y ago
  Yeah, that's fair - it's been awhile since all this went down, so I guess my summary of my own take got hyperbolic over the years :/
  - civilized 5y ago
    You get BIG points for being willing to admit that possibility in my book. We all get things horribly wrong sometimes. Especially with, God, the incredible cultural pressure. I have problems with how Damore expressed himself too FWIW. But I think he was only trying to break an oppressive silence and start a conversation that was being heavily suppressed. I would have been happy to give him a strong, balanced critique had I been at Google and had I felt it wouldn't get me fired too.
    - wussboy 5y ago
      Thank you to both of you for the humility shown in this discussion.
RangerScience 5y ago
I think I can. Here's the document: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideol... JD says: "On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways", and then has the nice overlapping bimodal distribution graph. In my read, this data is foundational to many of his arguments, but there's a fundamental flaw in his application of it, which is: why you should expect anyone at Google (or, well, any sub-group with a filter process) would be meaningfully predictable by or representative of their biology's bimodal distribution, in the first place? I've noticed that a lot of Damore proponents never actually engage with the questions I ask them. Can you provide answers to the questions I've already asked? Edit: Acccctually. I'm noticing that this is exhausting for me (wouldn't be surprised if you felt the same) annnnd I don't predict it'll generate all that much worthwhile buuuut I have an idea. Rather than hash over something someone else said four years ago - what do you think of workshopping something that you'd like to express, that you think would receive a negative reception "by the orthodoxy", ala JD? Because I'm willing to bet my time and energy on my thesis that "tone" is what sunk his essay, and that I can help someone else express themselves in a way that'll receive a much, much better reception. (I realize that while I might just be betting my time and energy, you'd be likely to be betting much more, but we're rather limited by this medium haha)
- civilized 5y ago
  > why you should expect anyone at Google (or, well, any sub-group with a filter process) would be meaningfully predictable by or representative of their biology's bimodal distribution, in the first place? This is an important point and would have been my main intellectual critique of Damore as well. Statistics of large populations don't necessarily generalize to small subpopulations. For this reason Damore's arguments, while worthy of consideration, are quite a bit less than conclusive. At the same time I think Damore's points were basically insightful and likely to have some truth even within Google. In particular, there's a lot about tech that could be more human, and that women would disproportionately excel at. Why don't we do more of that stuff? Not only would we employ more women productively in tech, everybody would be happier with how tech works in society. One of the most progressive and "woke" women I know at my work said essentially this to me, unprompted. This was her idea of how to make tech better. Damore's idea! (Of course she'd never admit that it was Damore's but...)

civilized 5y ago

It's so deeply misinformed to say that Damore posited insurmountable blockers to groups of people not like him. It is impossible for me to understand how someone can claim to have read the document and this is what they understood it to be saying. First of all, he stressed that the relevant traits exist in abundance in all groups, as each group has a wide range of people within it. He had a giant graph illustrating this at the outset. He couldn't have been more clear. Second, he was talking about psychological tendencies and preferences, not a literal inability to do tech work.

RangerScience 5y ago
Yeah, that's fair - it's been awhile since all this went down, so I guess my summary of my own take got hyperbolic over the years :/
- civilized 5y ago
  You get BIG points for being willing to admit that possibility in my book. We all get things horribly wrong sometimes. Especially with, God, the incredible cultural pressure. I have problems with how Damore expressed himself too FWIW. But I think he was only trying to break an oppressive silence and start a conversation that was being heavily suppressed. I would have been happy to give him a strong, balanced critique had I been at Google and had I felt it wouldn't get me fired too.
  - wussboy 5y ago
    Thank you to both of you for the humility shown in this discussion.

RangerScience 5y ago

I think I can. Here's the document: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideol... JD says: "On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways", and then has the nice overlapping bimodal distribution graph. In my read, this data is foundational to many of his arguments, but there's a fundamental flaw in his application of it, which is: why you should expect anyone at Google (or, well, any sub-group with a filter process) would be meaningfully predictable by or representative of their biology's bimodal distribution, in the first place? I've noticed that a lot of Damore proponents never actually engage with the questions I ask them. Can you provide answers to the questions I've already asked? Edit: Acccctually. I'm noticing that this is exhausting for me (wouldn't be surprised if you felt the same) annnnd I don't predict it'll generate all that much worthwhile buuuut I have an idea. Rather than hash over something someone else said four years ago - what do you think of workshopping something that you'd like to express, that you think would receive a negative reception "by the orthodoxy", ala JD? Because I'm willing to bet my time and energy on my thesis that "tone" is what sunk his essay, and that I can help someone else express themselves in a way that'll receive a much, much better reception. (I realize that while I might just be betting my time and energy, you'd be likely to be betting much more, but we're rather limited by this medium haha)

civilized 5y ago
> why you should expect anyone at Google (or, well, any sub-group with a filter process) would be meaningfully predictable by or representative of their biology's bimodal distribution, in the first place? This is an important point and would have been my main intellectual critique of Damore as well. Statistics of large populations don't necessarily generalize to small subpopulations. For this reason Damore's arguments, while worthy of consideration, are quite a bit less than conclusive. At the same time I think Damore's points were basically insightful and likely to have some truth even within Google. In particular, there's a lot about tech that could be more human, and that women would disproportionately excel at. Why don't we do more of that stuff? Not only would we employ more women productively in tech, everybody would be happier with how tech works in society. One of the most progressive and "woke" women I know at my work said essentially this to me, unprompted. This was her idea of how to make tech better. Damore's idea! (Of course she'd never admit that it was Damore's but...)